Conventionally, there is proposed a technology of dividing and transferring programs via a network, such that the programs are executed as the execution parts arrive. Furthermore, there is proposed a technology of receiving programs that have been divided, starting the execution while the programs are being received, and waiting if the reference part has not yet arrived.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Examined Patent Application Publication No. H3-047541
Patent Document 2: International Publication No. 98/011723
In recent years, various types of personal computers (PC) have been in widespread use, such as a desktop computer, a laptop computer, a palm computer, and a tablet terminal. By developing applications that do not depend on the platform such as the OS (Operating System) of these various PCs (applications that operate on multi-platforms), the user is able to use the same application without considering the difference in platforms, even when various PCs are used.
When developing such applications that operate on multi-platforms, it is mainstream to use a World Wide Web technology described in HTML (HyperText Markup Language). Applications described in HTML are referred to as Web applications. Among these applications, there is a Web application called “Packaged Web App”. Specifically, in the HTML specification for which a draft has been open to the public starting in 2008, there is defined a specification for operating web applications on-line, which are the “Packaged Web Apps”.
“Packaged Web Apps” is one type of the applications operating on browsers, which resides at the client after being downloaded from the server, and operates off-line on the client side.
Hereinafter, “Packaged Web Apps” is simply referred to as an application.
Typically, an application is used by being packaged into a single file by archiving a group of files needed for an operation, and therefore, it cannot be executed until the entire package is downloaded. Meanwhile, since a web application used on-line is not packaged, it may be executed as soon as a part of the files constituting the web application is loaded in a browser. Therefore, a user who is accustomed to using on-line web applications will expect to immediately use “Packaged Web Apps” which operates off-line.
However, when the data size of an application is large, it takes much time to download the application, and therefore the user has to wait until the entire package is completely downloaded in order to execute the application.